ABSTRACT
SCOTT’s book is a deceptively simple introduction to the poetry. It was intended as an appreciation rather than literary criticism: “poetry is not to be understood by the examination of its mechanics, it must be recognized in part by the gooseflesh on the thighs, the prickling of the nape of the neck, the singing in the mind and spirit”. Despite this disclaimer, it picked up on the main themes that would dominate the criticism of the Australian poet for the next 20 years: the extermination of the Aborigines, the historical context of World War II, the Korean and projected nuclear war, the country’s landscape, gender politics, environmental issues, and literary movements such as the Jindyworobaks. The text includes material from Scott’s interview with Wright, and is complemented by photographs and a copy of one of her manuscripts. The “appreciative” nature of the writing does become overbearing at times, as in the grand claim for Wright as “one of the greatest women poets ever to write in English”.
